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3 of the April 2018
homepage archives.
Friday 20
 John Frye, creator of fictitious electronics
repair shop owner Mac McGregor and his sidekick technician, Barney, must have been
an amateur student of
brainology[sic]. This episode in a 1969 issue of Electronics
World, and a recent story titled, "Biological Effects of Electrical Shock,"
which appeared in the May 1973 edition of Popular Electronics are proof
of that. A very good introduction to the workings of nerve cells, axons, synapses,
dendrites, etc., is given here. In a role reversal, Barney is educating Mac this
time based on a psychology course he is taking at the community college. He goes
beyond the "your brain is a...
 By popular request, a new set of shapes has
been added to RF Stencils for Visio:
Panel Components. These are built to the same scale as the test
equipment and equipment racks in v3.0 so they will fit right in with your existing
drawings. There are now more than 780 shapes in v3.1! Still only $35
(free to v3.0 owners)...
Satellite communication is growing rapidly.
Recent and anticipated launches of new satellite equipment are spurring interest
in and demand for wireless communication. Several companies have stated the intent
to provide large throughput, high-speed communication networks in the coming years.
Along with the increased access to space, this is driving interest in new
satellite communications. Accordingly, we need new communications
technology to supply bandwidth and data rate to support these applications. One
challenge...
 "Electronics miniaturization has put high-powered
computing capability into the hands of ordinary people, but the ongoing downsizing
of integrated circuits is challenging engineers to come up with new ways to thwart
component overheating. Scientists at U. Cal., Irvine made a breakthrough recently
in verifying a new material configuration to facilitate cooling. In a study in the
journal
Nanotechnology, members of UCI's Nano Thermal Energy Research
Group highlight the attributes of holey silicon, a computer chip..."
Thursday 19
 I have to laugh a bit when seeing this article
on how to wire up a set of
3-way switches "[i]f you only have a two-wire cable to work with."
There have been many times when I needed to wire a set of 3-way switches and only
had 2-wire Romex cable on-hand. The simple solution is to simply run two pieces
of 2-wire cable and only use one wire from the second piece. A 250' roll of 14-3
w/ground costs about $79 at the hardware store. A 250' roll of 14-2 w/ground costs
about $45. For short runs, the additional cost of using two pieces of 14-2 compared
to a single piece of 14-3 is diddly. However, if you want...
 "The 2018 International Microwave Symposium
(IMS), this year, will be held in Philadelphia from the 10 to 15 of June. This year
one of the projects in the Student Design Competition is a 16-quadrature amplitude
modulation (QAM) radio. The competition will be based on a course offered by Dr.
David S. Ricketts from North Carolina State University. The competition leverages
Dr. Ricketts' hands-on workshop, known as 'From Bits to Waves: Building a Modern
Radio in One Day,' which successfully combines the use of NI AWR Design Environment
with design labs to..."
April 26, 2018, 11 am ET. NI AWR Design
Environment will be featured in a webinar on designing a
printed balun for a wide bandwidth L-band 200 W power amplifier
(PA). The design begins with an idealized circuit simulation in Microwave Office
circuit design software using closed-form transmission line models, followed by
a more rigorous EM simulation conducted using AXIEM 3D planar EM solver. The webinar
is presented by Dr. Dominic FitzPatrick of PoweRFul Microwave, who...
 The April issue of Aerospace Defense magazine
has an interesting article titled, "Designing with Plastics for Military Equipment," that discusses
how plastics are replacing metal parts in military equipment. Included is a useful
table of plastic types, their properties, and examples of their applications...
Wednesday 18
 Here's a gimmick that never really caught
on. In the 1960's, Antenna Specialists promoted their Model M-148 Co-Ax Omni Antenna
"with visual RF indicator." That indicator was a neon light bulb
at the tip which lit up when the transmitter was keyed on. Not only would this novel
feature let you know when your transmitter was broadcasting, but it would also "guide
mobiles visually to your 10-20." OK, maybe at night, but it certainly wouldn't have
been bright enough during the day to even see. Alas, the public evidently didn't
impress the buying public as much as it did the designers. Maybe it had something
to do with...
Transient Specialists, a leader in electromagnetic
compatibility rentals for over 40 years, announces that they will be offering a
discount price on the
AVI 3000
for the month of May. This all-in-one 6 waveform portable test unit allows easy
on-site testing to full level 3 threat under all load conditions. This product is
ideal for testing to DO 160 Sec. 22 Level 3 and Mil Std. 461 CS 117 Waveforms 1,
2, 3, 4, 5A, and 6. Transient Specialists, conveniently located in the mid-west,
offers a variety of EMC test equipment rentals to accommodate your testing needs...
Here are a couple more
electronics-themed comics from a 1969 edition of Electronics
World magazine. I like the radio astronomy comic. Enjoy...
 Yonghui Shu, president of SAGE Millimeter,
offers a primer on
Gunn diodes used as mm-wave oscillators. It appears on the HFE
website. "The semiconductor used in the Gunn oscillator is called the 'Gunn diode.'
The Gunn diode is a two-terminal 'negative' resistance device. The Gunn diode is
also referred to as a 'Transferred Electron Device' which was invented by J. B.
Gunn in 1963. Since their invention, Gunn oscillators have been playing a unique
role in replacing the tube to generate low to medium level...
RF Cafe's continued existence depends on companies like ERZIA providing support.
ERZIA produces microwave and mm-wave
modular amplifiers and integrated assemblies operating from Low frequencies
up to 100 GHz. Their catalogue of standard amplifier modules comprises more
than 100 different models, having also a high capacity of customization for amplifiers
and integrated assemblies. Some of products have space heritage and are used in
aerospace, commercial, military and scientific systems, having a wide range of final
applications...
 "A manufacturer of III-V photonic devices
claims to have proven the feasibility of 60-GHz radio over fiber (ROF) transmission
at a 1,270-nm wavelength, paving the way to potential solutions for 5G networks.
CST Global, a Scotland-based subsidiary of Sivers IMA Holdings AB in Kista, Sweden,
carried out the feasibility study as part of an EU Horizon 2020 research project.
The company says that ROF networks are emerging as a completely new and promising
communication paradigm for delivering broadband wireless access services and..."
Tuesday 17
Testing multi-antenna systems such as phased
array or beamforming antennas requires a test system capable of providing
multiple signals with constant phase relationships between them.
The coherent test signals must have a specific or definable phase difference (relative
phase) and definable amplitude. Some of the challenges for such a test system include
compactness, phase control capability and simplicity in handling. In particular,
phase stability between the channels is of importance. This application note...
 Mr. Matt Spexarth, of National Instruments,
offers his insight into the
future of automotive radar testing in his Microwave Journal
article. "Radar has multiple advantages over alternative sensing technologies,
securing its role in automotive active safety and autonomous driving well into
the future. Radar has the unique abilities to instantaneously detect the
velocity of detected objects via the Doppler shift of their radar signatures,
and to penetrate inclement weather conditions such as rain, fog and snow. These
benefits are driving automakers..."
Are There Too Many Short-Range
Wireless Standards?
 Lou Frenzel has another good article over
at the Microwaves & RF website. Sez Mr. Frenzel, "Do you know how many
wireless standards there are? More than you think. Just recently
I made a list of all the short-range wireless standards I could think of - more
than 30 in total. I did not include any proprietary designs that fit things like
garage door openers, remote keyless entry on vehicles, weather stations, tire pressure
monitoring, or all those other unique ISM band wireless devices. That got me to
thinking about how an engineer chooses a standard..."
You probably won't find too many people
stacking television antennas these days, but many Hams still do
it. Vertical stacking is used primarily to increase overall gain without appreciably
altering the azimuth beam, while horizontal stacking forms a tighter azimuth beam
without appreciably affecting the overall gain. When it comes to optimizing antenna
designs installations for operations below about a gigahertz, Amateur Radio practitioners
have pretty much written the book on the subject - actually, they have written hundreds
of books on the subject. Antenna stacking is often used...
  Anatech Electronics (AEI) manufactures and
supplies RF and microwave
filters for military and commercial communication systems, providing standard
and custom RF filters, and RF products. Standard RF filter and cable assembly products
are published in our website database for ease of procurement. Custom RF filters
designs are used when a standard cannot be found, or the requirements dictate a
custom approach. Please visit Anatech today to see how they can help your project
succeed!...
 "Silicon Valley has become a must-visit destination
for Department of Defense leaders in recent years. But the push for more public-private
partnerships could have an unintended side effect - overlooking government's longstanding
research and development resources. Arun Seraphin, a professional staff member for
the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, said he thinks the fixation on startup-culture
innovation has gone too far. 'We like to say that every time a senior leader flies
to Silicon..."
Monday 16
 "Confusion and erratic enforcement at the
US communications agency is sending satellite makers abroad. When officials at the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) denied launch authorization for four innovative
satellites from startup Swarm Technologies last December, the
agency was unequivocal as to the reason. 'The applicant proposes to deploy and operate
four spacecraft that are smaller than 10 centimeters in one of their three dimensions,'
read a letter to Swarm's CEO and founder Sara Spangelo. 'These spacecraft are..."
Pasternack, a leading provider of RF, microwave
and millimeter wave products, has just launched a new, innovative line of
coaxial RF probes and probe positioning hardware. These new products
are well-suited for signal integrity verification, chip evaluations, coplanar waveguide,
circuit debugging and test fixture applications. Pasternack's new product line consists
of four coaxial RF probes and one RF PCB probe positioner with unique designs. The
RF coaxial probes deliver frequency performance up to 20 GHz and return loss better
than 10 dB...
 This thankful commemoration of the 20th anniversary
of U.S. Air Mail service from Burgess Battery Company, which appeared in a 1941
issue of QST magazine, encompasses most of my major lifetime interests. First and
foremost, from my earliest memories, is a love of airplanes (and all things that
fly for that matter). A DC-3 (my favorite multi-engine propeller plane) is shown
in one of the photos as is a Ford Trimotor, which Melanie and I have flown on. Next
comes the electrical, electronics, and radio communications aspects, which encompasses
the aircraft wiring...
 Coilcraft is offering a free app note titled
"Inductors as RF Chokes." "Many consumer products communicate with
each other over broadband networks. From television to fiber trans- mission networks,
the bandwidth of data communication is increasing, and the integrity of RF signals
has become a major design concern. This paper provides examples of how different
inductors can be used for RF isolation in a range of circuits from relatively narrow
band applications like portable devices up to broadband networks for data distribution.
The different types of inductors..."
 "Within the aerospace industry, 2016 and
onwards could be looked upon as the tipping point for direct metal printing (DMP),
as the technology increasingly made the jump beyond prototyping to production parts
and assemblies ready for flight. During that time frame, Airbus Defense and Space
worked with 3D Systems (Rock Hill, SC) to achieve a major breakthrough: The first
3D-printed radio frequency (RF) filter tested and validated for use in commercial
telecoms satellites. The project built upon research funded by the European Space
Agency..."
Sunday 15
 Each week, for the sake of all avid cruciverbalists
amongst us, I create a new
technology-themed crossword puzzle using only words from my custom-created
lexicon related to engineering, science, mathematics, chemistry, physics, astronomy,
etc. You will never find among the words names of politicians, mountain ranges,
exotic foods or plants, movie stars, or anything of the sort. You might, however,
see someone or something in the exclusion list who or that is directly related to
this puzzle's theme, such as Hedy Lamar or the Bikini Atoll, respectively...
Friday 13
 "NASA
Glenn's
cup cylindrical waveguide antenna (CCWA) is a short backfire microwave antenna
capable of simultaneously supporting the transmission or reception of two distinct
signals having opposite circular polarizations. Short backfire antennas are widely
used in mobile satellite communications, tracking, telemetry, and wireless local
area networks because of their compactness and excellent radiation characteristics.
Achieving simultaneous dual-circular..."
 Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) is promoting
the availability of their free
RF Component Pocket Guide. I posted an article about it and some
of their
posters and pocket guides. R&S develops, produces and markets
test & measurement, information and communications technology. It focuses on
test and measurement, broadcast and media, cybersecurity, secure communications
and monitoring and network testing, areas that address many different industry and
government-sector market segments. Specifically: test and measurement for the wireless
market, automotive industry...
 When is the last time you heard someone refer
to electronics as "solid state?" It was a necessary differentiator during the era
of transition from vacuum tubes to semiconductors. Mere utterance caused fear in
some, and futuristic hope in others. "Solid State" was a big buzz phrase in marketing
to household consumers and industry planners. Why, I ask, was "solid state" chosen
as the term to counter vacuum tube electronics? Did we ever refer to tubes as "gaseous
state" or "plasma state" devices? Maybe the "solid" part of "solid state" evoked
a sympathetic emotion with the coincident hippie / beatnik era population's usage...
 While doing a little research about a
Popular Electronics article, I ran across some examples of
electronic
component art / sculpture. A Google image search on the topic yields hundreds
of results, with most being duplicates. I always try to locate the original image
so as to give proper credit to the designer, but more often that not the pictures
are posted on websites without a reference. To avoid unfairly attracting attention
from the creator's work, I always use thumbnails and provide hyperlinks to the websites
where I found...
 The fourth annual IEEE MTT-S 2018 International
Conference on Microwaves for Intelligent Mobility (ICMIM 2018) will be held on 16-18
April, 2018 in Munich, Germany. This conference covers a broad range of topics that
enable intelligent mobile systems through RF / microwave / mm-wave components, circuits
and systems. Potential applications include cognitive and autonomous automobiles
and robots, wireless communications between automobiles and industrial machines.
ICMIM2018 is sponsored by the IEEE MTTS and technically...
 "An
inaudible signal that translates to white noise in the microphone
can prevent unauthorized persons from recording voices. Researchers have designed
a sound that is completely inaudible to humans (40 kHz or above), yet is audible
to any microphone. The sound combines multiple tones that, when interacting with
the microphone's mechanics, create what researchers call a 'shadow' - a sound that
the microphones can detect..."
Thursday 12
 "Researchers have discovered a new mechanism
to explain
stochastic resonance, in which sensitivity to weak signals is
enhanced by noise. The finding is expected to help electronic devices become smaller
and more energy efficient. Noise is generally a nuisance that drowns out small signals.
For example, it can prevent you from catching what your partner is saying during
a conversation. However, it is known that living organisms find it easier to detect
predators in noisy environments since noise enhances the sensitivity of the sensory..."
 Windfreak Technologies attended WAMICON 2018 in Sand Key, FL,
as an exhibitor in the vendors hall. Windfreak demonstrated its new product the
SynthNV PRO which is the next generation of the popular SynthNV.
Windfreak Technologies has shipped thousands of the original SynthNV around the
world since its release in 2010. The SynthNV PRO is a highly calibrated 51 MHz
to 6.6 GHz RF Signal Generator plus 8 GHz broadband RF detector / power
meter. The SynthNV accomplishes Scalar Network Analysis for both through and reflected
responses...
 Filtering, timing, coupling, and energy storage
are the most common uses for
capacitors (not to mention their use in electronic component sculptures).
Metallized paper or plastic, plastic film, mica, ceramic, electrolytic, and a few
other capacitor types have been around for a long time, with newer formulations
of electrolytics providing higher charge storage density, lower leakage, greater
stability, lower cost, wider operational temperature ranges, more robust construction,
etc. We now have supercapacitors that...
 Thanks
to RF Cafe visitor Alois B. for providing additional resources for the material
dielectric constants page. Now included are
Electrical
Properties of Insulators and
Dielectric Properties of Materials...
Saelig Company announces the availability
of the 4-channel Oscilloscope range,
offering 100 MHz - 1 GHz bandwidth, capacitive touch capabilities, huge
memory, and a comprehensive tool box - all at a remarkably affordable price in a
compact, small footprint product. Featuring the industry's most advanced user-interface
- MAUI - on a 10.1" capacitive touch screen, the scopes all have 20 Mpts of
memory, multi-instrument capabilities, a selection of powerful internal test tools
and a sample rate of up to...
 "Radio Frequency Systems (RFS) is helping
major U.S. broadcasters future-proof their systems against the Spectrum Repacking
announced by the FCC. The FCC released a public notice announcing that they will
repack the television band by assigning television stations to new channels. Nearly
1,000 stations will be moved to new channels starting November 2018. RFS is using
its patented
Variable Polarization Technology (VPT), to address global deployments
and US-specific demand. They have now installed..."
Wednesday 11
 Anatech Electronics, a manufacturer of RF
and microwave filters, has published its
April newsletter. In it, Sam Benzacar digresses from his usual
insight into military and commercial telecommunications topics to address the potential
for election fraud. It is not a politically charged treatise, but a commentary on
the vulnerability of cybersecurity efforts - basically concluding that other than
with old fashion paper ballots, meddlers have ample opportunity to rig the system
without ever physically showing up at polling sites. Of course we...
 RF, IF and baseband amplifiers; RF, IF, and
baseband filters; fixed and tunable local oscillators, single- and double-balanced
mixers, attenuators, envelope detectors and phase detectors, directional couplers,
power combiners and dividers, et cetera, are all component types used for
receiver systems regardless of whether vacuum tubes or transistors
comprise the active parts. In 1972 when this article appeared in Popular Electronics
magazine, people were beginning to get comfortable with the idea of transistorized
products replacing the familiar tube. Instant-on televisions and radios were...
 Rohde & Schwarz has published a new app
note titled, "High-Resolution Measurements with R&S Oscilloscopes." It is
available as a free download. "The introduction of high-resolution oscilloscopes
is the response to the increased necessity for more in-depth signal analysis in
particular in A&D, automotive, medical and power analysis applications where
it is often required to view signals with both large and small voltage details.
Characterizing Switched Mode Power Supplies (SMPS) is one example. To perform accurate
power measurements the oscilloscope must acquire the..."
 "Making the next generation of ultralow-power
communications and sensory devices smaller and with greater detection and tuning
ranges, researchers at Case Western Reserve University are developing atomically
thin 'drumheads' able to receive and transmit signals across a radio
frequency range far greater than what we can hear with the human ear. The drumhead
is tens of trillions times smaller in volume and 100,000 times thinner than the
human eardrum. Sensing and communication are key to..."
 "One tethered, autonomous
aerostat [aka 'blimp'] flying at 250 meters can provide as much
coverage as 20 or 30 cell towers. It's 2018 and more than 16 million people living
in the rural United States still lack adequate access to mobile broadband. But building
out that infrastructure is an expensive endeavor. One analysis from 2017 estimates
it would take 37,500 new cell phone towers and run upwards of $12.5 billion to bring
4G to rural areas in the United States, including Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico..."
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